20/1:
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to write my blog last night and the day before was my Sabbath. I’m finding it difficult to define the Sabbath for myself since I’m not really working, but my idea was that especially because I’m not officially working but have many things I want to do, if I don’t have a day where I’m officially free to do whatever, I won’t have the balance I need (and also to train myself for when I actually have work to do but need to give myself time to relax). However, the questions now is: what is work for me and what isn’t? I decided that I’ll avoid doing anything that I feel obliged to do, so I won’t schedule any things on Sundays, won’t do my kanji or music practice, won’t respond to emails or do chores or write my blog. In addition I will try to do at least something involving the outdoors. However, I already kind of failed on this point, because as I as about to head out the door for a bike trip to Arashiyama to see this old temple, I realized it was raining and wouldn’t be very fun.
Instead, I spent the day inside getting wa over-hyped kind of like Calvin spends his Saturdays, except instead of eating Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs I had like 4 or 5 cups of coffee and instead of watching cartoons I listened to two full two-hour lectures about geo. This was kind of a border case, because university classes seem like work, but I rationalized it that it wasn’t something I felt like I had to get done, but something I wanted to do, like reading a book I want to read, so it’s OK. I also did some planning of my trip to China, which was again arguable, but I felt like doing it. I dunno, I guess I’m a little worried that my time being stressed out at Amherst has made me so worried about getting so much done that I’m incapable of really taking it easy and not doing things I need to do. However, I was really enjoying excited about the trip and wanted to do it so I think it’s still OK with the spirit of my Sabbath.
I realize this probably sounds very strange in many different ways, but that’s just what it is.
Here’s one of the cups of coffee I made. I’ve always wanted to be able to make good latte art, and I think if I can make sweet latte calligraphy it could be the next craze. I’m getting there…
Remember, you saw it here first.
21/1:
Since I was way over-hyped and went to sleep at 3 and slept till 12, I ended up not being able to sleep at all. I had been thinking for a while that since I haven’t had McDonald’s in many months I’d like to eat it some time when it felt like the right time. After tossing and turning for a couple of hours, I got really hungry and suddenly realized it was the perfect time to go do so. Unfortunately, when I arrived, I realized that it was closed until 6am (it was about 3 or 4am). It was OK, though, because I got some cheap onigir from the conbini (there are conbini everywhere), walked to the Kamogawa river and ate it while looking out over the river where a few months back I accidentally mis-threw the Frisbee with the Zumbyes and lost it forever.
It felt great to be out there on my own in the cold at that ridiculous hour, especially after spending all day inside.
When I got back, I figured there wasn’t even any point trying to go back to sleep, since I had been invited to go to this random cult thing at 6am (more on that soon). I figured I should go hard or go home, so I made myself another cup of coffee and screwed around online.
At 5:40 Alec came by to pick me up, and it turned out that basically this thing he invited me to was a cult. To be fair, I kind of expected it when he said it was a “kind of new religion thing”, but I thought it’d be an interesting experience and planned not to drink any drinks they gave me.
It was called “shinnyoin” and I think it was basically a cult, in that it seemed weird, encouraged people to convert others, and seemed to be as much about the greatness of their leaders as it was about the greatness of the Buddha and transcendence (it was a Buddhist cult). However, they didn’t do anything to force me to join other than show me a video that left me decidedly unimpressed. I could see how people who are kind of lonely and uncritical in their thinking could be drawn in though… it would be comforting to have a simple thing to believe in and a lot of people to be with and chant with. Come to think of it, what are major religions really other than cults that managed to become very popular and stick around for a few thousand years?
The chanting part was kind of fun, although it was not too different from the chanting we did at the Buddhist temple in Kumano. Incidentally, later in the day I passed a guy advertising a restaurant and his sales pitch sounded almost exactly the same. The musical sounds of capitalism are pretty interesting in Japan, with a lot of people sing/chanting sales pitches, people always calling out “irasshaimase” and “arigatou gozaimashita” in interesting ways and all kinds of other things you’re supposed to say when providing services. I’m convinced that many of the shopkeepers do this kind of erotic breathy moan thing on the “se” at the end of “irasshaimase”. No one believes me when I tell them, but then we were walking along somewhere and Sawa heard it and admitted I was right. Also, when we went to Akihabara there was this guy rapping on the street ad I eventually realized he was rapping his cell-phone sales pitch. Crazy.
Anyway, this is getting very long, so I think I’ll try to speed through a little more now.
After I returned and took a three-hour nap I went to my utai lesson, then came back and had my English tutoring. We talked a lot about my recent idea to study karaoke as a masters thesis. It’d be great because it’s such an interesting and unique feature of Japanese culture, and to me much more creative and healthy than most other consumer leisure activities like drinking, shopping, bowling, etc. Also, everyone does it, even different generations and people who don’t sing. When Sawa, her friend and I went with Sawa’s dad and her friend’s dad, we all had a great time together. There are also lots of potentially negative things about it, tough, the main one being what Tadaya described as the fact that the best karaoke performance is a perfect copy of the original, and it’s not an original performance, really. There’s got to be a lot of data of all kinds because it’s such a huge industry in Japan.
That evening I made dinner for Hayao, Ranbo and Mashu.
Not including the time Sawa and I made dinner at her parents’ place, it was my first time making dinner in about a month. It was delicious, but it reminded me how long it takes to make food. It’s so tempting to just pay a tiny smidgen more and have someone else do all the work, although it is a nice feeling to make it yourself.
Oh, I also studied Japanese for an hour and practiced shamisen for an hour. It makes me feel really good to get it done, because it’s only a little but it’s amazing how much I get done when I just do an hour a day.
22/1
This morning I planned to get up early to do some things, but my sleepless night with three-hour nap caught up to me and I was deathly tired when I woke up, so I fell back asleep, woke up three hours later, fell back asleep again and woke up around 12:30p and headed off to Osaka to go the NZ Consulate to get the “certified true copy” of my passport.
Since I was in Osaka, I had planned to meet up with Reiko for dinner. Unfortunately, it took forever to actually meet, because of the modern-day method of meeting where instead of arranging a specific place and a specific time, people give a general place and plan to call when they get there. This never ever works correctly and it’s one of my pet peeves. I vow from now on to insist on a specific time and place whenever I meet people unless there’s really no way of that working. The ramen dinner was great, though!
When I got back I had my shamisen lesson. I realized all of a sudden that I won’t have another lesson for a whole month (since I’m going on a trip to Kyushu next week with Ranbo, to the Sapporo Snow Festival the week after with Sawa, then to China for two weeks!) When we finally get back to Kyoto I think Sawa and I will start learning the koto together, since my teacher’s main instrument is really the koto.
On the train to Osaka I studied my hour of Japanese and on the train back and after I got back I graded my students’ final projects and wrote up their final grades. It’s really a hassle to writ out individual comments for 33 students, but I always hated it when professors didn’t give me feedback beyond a letter grade after a whole semester of work in that class.
Incidentally, as something I thought about as I heard the familiar sounds of students zipping up bags and scraping chairs at the end of the iTunes geography lectures and that I wrote a letter to the editor about this as a student at Amherst, I vow as a professor to never give homework over holidays and in return I will not stand for it if students start packing up before I finish class.
Whew. I gotta keep this more updated and not blabber on so much. Oyasumi!
Oh yeah, here are my revised stats and graphs for my budget:
